H is for ...

Hi again.

[restart]

There has been much speculation (in both blog comments and in my private email) regarding what precipitated my disappearance six months ago (almost to the day). Among them:

• I'd had a relapse of the flu I'd suffered shortly before my hiatus.
• Amy was upset about the blog.
• I'd died (!).
• Amy and I were breaking up.
• Amy was pregnant (!!).

I'm happy to say that none of these suppositions were correct. (Though if I'm going to be perfectly honest with you, there are fleeting moments when I wouldn't mind if Amy were pregnant again. But don't tell her.)

If I were feeling inspired to be dramatic, I could probably spin a yarn about how Amy and her secret lover kidnapped me (after leaving the kids with the neighbors) and took me to their Costa Rican love dungeon, only releasing me lo these months later after I had achieved a sexual nirvana heretofore unexpereienced by humankind.

But it's not that interesting. In fact, it's not even as interesting as what the rest of you came up with. It was just ... life. Among the "lowlights" y'all missed (all of which contributed, in greater or lesser degrees, to my prolonged absence):

• deadlines for major projects at work, taking me out of commission for most of May, August, and part of September;
• two family vacations this summer!
• a ridiculous number of commitments related to a kid's school and extracurricular activities;
• numerous visits to our home by family members; and
  
• many medical- and work-related issues for Amy

Notice anything in particular missing from that list?

Yep. Conspicuously absent would be Energetic, sweaty, ball-slapping fucking like the feral creatures from which I'm sure we evolved.

Most of the items on that second list will explain the lack of cum-dripping adventures, but none more so than the last one. It's been one of those years for Amy where one medical "event" after another has made her feel much, much older than her years. I know that many of you can relate. And all of this preoccupation with her health has put a severe damper on our sexual activity. It's not that there has been zero orgasms; we did "fit it in" (wink wink, nudge nudge) a few times this last half-year. And some of the sex has been truly awesome. But fun nights have been few and far between, and time to document them simply hasn't been there.

Since I defined this blog pretty narrowly from the outset as being about sex ... well, there hasn't been a lot to write about. But if I'm going to be honest, this wasn't the only reason I stopped. Honestly, with the amount I posted for the blog's first four-and-a-half months, it was going to be hard for me under the best of circumstances to keep up that sort of pace. I was feeling burned out.

But I wasn't expecting to take this long of a break. And I also wasn't expecting that the event that would get me off my middle-aged ass and get writing again would be the "hiatus" of one of my all-time favorite bloggers, La fille mariée. The blogosphere was robbed of an important voice when she decided to type the light fantastic. And while I'm not for a minute believing that my voice can in any way fill the void left by her departure, her leaving did make me realize that I didn't want The Concupiscent Husband to die completely.

So, I'm back, if in a slightly less regular form. One of the ways I hope to keep this blog (and myself) fresh is to not feel the need to post as often as before. I'm not short of ideas: I currently have 26 posts in draft form, all different topics, waiting for my attention. And there is such a good amount of material out there from the sex blogs that are out there that I am certain I will be able to take in your experiences and ideas, chew them for awhile, and spit them back into the atmosphere with a new flavor. If, uh, that metaphor of regurgitated sexual philosophy wasn't too disgusting for you to dwell on. Quick, think of big cocks and tits and get back to what you really want to be dwelling on in your office cubicle.

There's something refreshing from starting at Square One again. Maybe I build a whole new audience. Maybe some of you who still find my posts relevant might give me another gander. But this blog thing doesn't really work if I don't write for myself first, and trust that the audience will find me.

I'm actually looking forward to doing this again. Okay, okay. To be honest, I'm actually looking forward to doing that again . . . and then describing that to you in all its energetic, sweaty, ball-slapping, over-wordy detail.

TMI Tuesday #10: "Hello!"

I like to play. You can too.

1. What one piece of sage relationship advice would you give your child (or niece/nephew or friend).

Above all else, communicate. This doesn't mean just telling your partner what you need, it means asking lots of questions about his/her needs. And insist that your partner do the same. If (s)he is at all uncomfortable with lots of communication, that's a red flag. Don't be shocked when major issues come up later.


2. When was the last time you left a passion mark Or had one left on you? (A passion mark is an unintentional physical manifestation of an act of passion: a hickey left in the heat of the moment; fingernail or teeth marks that last for more than an hour, a bump on your head from slamming into the headboard could even count).

Probably not since high school, when I left "physical manifestations of an act of passion" (who is writing this stuff?) on the inside of my girlfriend's thighs, right next to her pussy. I haven't felt the "need" to do that since. Nor has it been requested.


3. When was the last time you had sex in a car?

Only once — same girlfriend as in number 2 above! It was a Buick Regal, her mom's. We had driven to the other end of the apartment complex from where her place was. We believed this would give us privacy. We were wrong! We also had parked fairly near a very large dumpster, and for some bizarre, completely stupid reason, this car came up and parked right next to us at 3:30 in the morning — just as she was straddling my lap and bouncing on my dick. We dove for cover. She ended up stretched out on the back seat and I was on the floor.

This guy next to us, in a station wagon, pulls the tailgate down and proceeds to sit there next to us and eat lunch while we lie perfectly still. Then he starts unloading trash from the back of the car into the nearby dumpster. At some point, my girlfriend decides to torture me by playing with my dick while I lie down there, unable to make a sound with this guy sometimes no more than two feet away from us. When he finally did drive off, I used all that pent-up energy to fuck her silly.

Oh, I also have had roadhead a number of times. For the story of one of those occasions, go back in time.


4. Have you ever had an orgasm in a public conveyance?

I'm not too proud to say that I actually had to look up "conveyance" to make sure it meant what I thought it meant. It did, though I thought it would be a more broad term that might include time-travel machines, space shuttles, and (in some countries) elephants. Which it doesn't. So sadly, with those restrictions, my honest answer must be: No.

Amy and I have had a LOT of sex on Amtrak, but never in a public area — always in the privacy of our sleeper. (Terrible name, "sleeper." Who sleeps when you'd rather fuck like crazed porn stars, her tits pressed up against the window as you watch the backyards of America fly by?)


5. Have you ever had an orgasm with someone other than your partner (or partners) present?

Okay, not 100% sure exactly what you're going for here, but I'm thinking that you must be asking if I've ever come while someone else besides the person actually assisting in the orgasm was in the room. In other words, have I ever come on the sly?

Hmmmm. No. None of my partners, as best I know, were the kind that found a real thrill with sex in public or "dangerous" places. Too bad, it would have been fun. Apparently, they all needed privacy in order to release their inhibitions.

Now, I've been teased plenty of times by women in public, with a foot or a hand, standing in a crowd or sitting at a table. But I never came from that activity.


Bonus (as in optional): You are strolling along in the mall with your S.O. A young woman is approaching from the opposite direction and will pass within feet of you. She is attractive and has magnificent body. Describe your reaction.

First of all, you need to know this: Seven times out of ten, Amy notices these beautiful women before I do. And she usually comments on them. But whether it's Amy or me noticing, the initial reaction is the same: Either before we get within earshot of the subject or after we've passed her, one of us says: "Hello!" The reaction is usually reserved for women with particularly large breasts who feel the need to share their gifts with the world as much as the law allows. But it can also be used for women who are simply exceptionally devastating.

Amy's cool with this — as long as I don't go on about it for too long!

Saturday Night Living

"Wanna fool around?"

I was lying on the couch; Amy was on top of me. She responded: "I thought you wanted to watch SNL."

I had wanted to, ever since I'd found out that Scarlett Johansson was hosting and Bjork was the musical guest. That's a lot of hotness squeezed into one standard-definition TV screen. How could I resist?

But then the show started, and Scarlett hit the stage for the opening monologue in a black mini-skirtish sort of number with a neckline that was — and I'm sure this was purely coincidence — designed to accentuate her beautiful, um, tracts of land. And then there were the black stockings. Oh, and pumps with four-inch heels. I barely remember the skit (she sung something with an actor doing Sanjaya). Once Scarlett was on stage, all I could think about was doing Amy.

I explained it much more simply to Amy: "I did want to watch it ... until I saw Scarlett. Now I just want to fool around."

"Um ... Okay."

+++
In case you didn't pick it up from her response, Amy wasn't fully on board. Maybe she felt some innate pressure since it was technically still (for the next few minutes, anyway) the anniversary of when we met.

It used to bug me a lot when Amy would "concede" to sex. "Never mind" would be my passive-aggressive reaction. But my thinking has evolved over time such that I've come to terms with this. I now understand that sometimes — sometimes, mind you — it's okay to go ahead and take when the giver is not gung-ho but still willing to go with it.

It's probably not an apt comparison, but there are plenty of other areas in our lives where I happily concede to do things for Amy that I'm not thrilled about. Shopping for clothes for her comes to mind — but not for the reason you might figure. I love shopping for clothes with her. But these days, my job on shopping excursions is de facto babysitter, keeping the kids from bothering her too much so that she can accomplish something. I happily make dinners she likes that I'm not necessarily wild about. I really have no interest in gardening, but I obediently play her weekend worker-bee as she plants and weeds in our yard. (To put it in more sexual terms, her gardening libido is much stronger than mine.¹)

These examples I bring up are, of course, the typical sort of give-and-take concessions that anyone in a healthy relationship regularly performs. So why does sex seem different?

Your response might be: "Well, Denis, sex should be more than an errand, more than a chore." Well, yeah. Ideally sex is an intimate, enthusiastic act that helps people connect on a romantic, or carnal, or — dare I say — spiritual level. But let's face it, for some women (and some men), sex is, on some occasions, an obligatory part of the relationship, performed for the good of the relationship. So while it might be a little pathetic to compare my conceding to weed a flower bed to my wife conceding to fuck me, when you get down to brass tacks, that's just the way it goes sometimes.

I had a good (female) friend once who joked about how, sometimes late at night when her husband was rearin' to go, she'd tell him: "You can do anything you want to me — just don't wake me up." She admitted that there was an underlying truth to the joke: She would occasionally consent to sex when she wasn't really into it. And that was fine. As long as the rest of the relationship is relatively healthy, and as long as it doesn't always seem like drudgery, one-sided sex is perfectly acceptable. (This is probably not a revelation to many of you; for me, guilt-ridden and over-libidoed, it's a relatively new concept for me to struggle with.)

And who knows: Once things get going, maybe she'll like it! In fact, when these circumstances arise, she often does. Which brings me to thought (or "justification," if you prefer) number two: On occasions when I am aware that Amy has agreed to sex with a degree of ambivalence, let it be known that I work my ass off to make sure it's worth her while. Ha — that statement sounds like a distant cousin to that age-old (and hilarious) belief that some men have: "If I could just sleep with that hot lesbian, I could turn her straight!" While I might not succeed every time, my chances of success are much better than those idiots'.

+++
"Did you see if we got a package today?" Amy asked as we tossed the back couch cushions onto the floor so that we could lie side-by-side.

I knew what she was really asking. "You mean, did we get the next movie?" We'd ordered another porn video, but it hadn't arrived yet. The very fact that she was asking indicated to me that she was looking for "assistance," an arousal pick-me-up. "Do you want to watch one of our other ones?" I asked.

"No, that's fine. I just wondered."

We started with gentle kissing. I was thinking momentarily about what it was like to kiss her that first time all those years ago. Either too much time has passed or my brain wasn't up to the task, but I couldn't really recapture that experience in my head. Part of the problem with my failed reverie was that Amy had removed her shirt, and her breasts were now sort of spilling delectably out of her bra. I paid them considerable attention, working along the edge of the bra with tongue and teeth. Then to the neck, then back to her mouth, then an ear ... nice and slow. Amy released the bra's front clasp, and I pulled back the bra with my teeth. Some tonguing of her nipples, and I was starting to hear actual sounds of interest.

She rolled me on my back, sat up, and then laid back on my legs. She kicked in the air as she pulled off her jeans and panties in one motion, and then, lying back, spread wide. There wasn't much I could do with her on top of my legs! Awkwardly, I pulled them out from underneath her (I wondered if this clumsy seduction hearkened back to our first night together!) and removed my own jeans. My dick bobbed and pointed like Dionysus' own divining rod ... right to where my mouth wanted to be.

I sucked and nibbled on her labia, working them open and finding Amy's clit. I began working my tongue flat against her, slow circles, occasionally throwing in more pointed tongue-dances down the length of her slit. I thought she was getting into it when all of a sudden, she said:

"Do you know what I want to see?"

I looked up from between her legs. "What?"

"I want to see that scene from that movie we watched the other night, when he has her tied up."

Her wish; my command. Off I went to retrieve The Masseuse, along with the lube.

Here was an odd situation: I was more interested in playing with Amy than watching the movie. I can't recall her ever being more into the porn than me. Oh, I found ways to amuse myself. Moving slightly to one side, I pushed my dick toward her mouth, and it was willingly accepted and lightly sucked while she watched. She occasionally looked up at me, smiled, and ran her tongue up and down the shaft before returning her focus to the movie.

I went down on her again and then moved into a position where I could tease her clit with the head of my cock. Amy picked right up on this, grabbing the dick herself and "using" me to masturbate. I love it when she does this, when she makes it more about her pleasure than mine. I would occasionally glance at the screen, but 95% of the time, I was watching Amy get into the scene.

At one point, I buried my head in her neck again. I whispered: "Tell me what's happening."

"She's sucking his cock now," Amy said. This was the final shot of the scene: While still tied to her crossbar, Jenna's mouth is fucked until Justin unloads a creamy cumshot on her mouth and chin. Just like the first time she watched this scene, Amy was impressed. She pushed my cock the rest of the way inside her. The scene over, we moved down on the couch and picked up our own tempo.

"So," I asked, "would you like to be tied up like that sometime?"

"Um ... Yeah," she said, as if the thought of it was both revelatory and genuinely arousing.

"I'll make sure that happens sometime soon," I said.

She reached down between us and began masturbating as we fucked.

"Yeah," I whispered, moving up so she could get her hands down there, and so I could watch. "Bring yourself off. I wanna see you come."

She worked herself for awhile as I continued my slow fucking, but then she abandoned that in favor of pulling me back on top of her. I was close to coming already from watching her, and this dramatic move on her part finished me off. I felt my cock pulse five or six times deep inside her.

"You aren't finished!" I announced heroically, and we both laughed as I made my way back down her belly, found her clit, and began a no-nonsense muffing that brought her to a quick and jerky climax.

She sighed. Stretched out on the couch. Accepted my head in the crook of her shoulder. And said: "So .... You wanna go back to watching Saturday Night Live?"

I didn't. I was certain that the show's mediocre quality would interfere with the moment we had just had. (Turns out I was right: I finished watching the episode last night, and it was horrendous.) We went to bed.

At the risk of being too nostalgic over the last 48 hours, I said to her one last time in bed: "I'm really glad you agreed to kiss me that night." She mumbled something affirmative, but she was already falling asleep.

It hadn't been a fireworks-inducing evening, like it might have been in, say, 1991. But really, is that even possible? There's no question that the way we love each other has changed as we've taken on different roles in different chapters of our life together. But there's also no question that the intensity of my love for this woman — and, let's face it, the sheer carnal lust for her — has not abated one iota.

--
¹ Let's stretch the metaphor too far: I'm not a size queen or anything, but my wife has a very large green thumb! [Return]

Detached

We were on the couch last night, Amy and me,¹ and it was getting on the later side (so what's new). This was how I put it:

"I'm not sure if you were thinking we were having sex tonight. Do you wanna do anything?"

A note to ladies reading this: I understand if my powers of seduction, exhibited in this steamy proposition to my wife, overwhelm you with moist desire. Please, take as much time as you need to "take care of bidness" before continuing with this entry.

"I mean ..." I continue, my libido twisting in the wind, "... I don't want to do anything you're not in the mood for. It's not that big a deal." This is sort of true. But even so: What the hell am I thinking when I say this?

There are two opposite forces at work here.

The first force is a simple, testosterone-based need. It's been a week since I've had any sex that didn't feature my hand in the starring role. Now we stand on the precipice of another work week. The odds of sex before next Saturday are slim to none. Some part of my brain screams: You have to try!

The counterforce is the knowledge that Amy hasn't responded to my overtures all day. These gestures have spanned the gamut, from simple (a caress of the ass, a kiss in the hollow of her neck) to heavy-handed (After repairing a child's toy that Amy [inadvertently] broke, thus silencing a 15-minute tantrum/pouting session, I whisper in Amy's ear: "You owe me an amazing blowjob tonight for this one!").

We had a stupid-busy weekend which included a to-do list that proved size does matter. The only way to gain ground was to split forces. Amy and one kid get a haircut while I take the other kid with me grocery shopping. I take one kid to a birthday party while Amy does yard work. We were detached for the whole weekend. And even when we were together, one or the other of us worked on different chores or dealt with different kids. We weren't spouses these last few days, we were co-workers.

And then there are the examples of the sexual disconnect:

- While watching Rome, I comment: "Man, do Atia's breasts get larger with every episode?" Amy's reply is a question: "Does your mind always have to be on that one track?" She kind-of-apologizes when I point out that such observations about women's bodies on TV usually come from her.

- We hear an ad for a Viagra-style product on the radio, and Amy muses: "How come they don't make a drug that lessens a man's sex drive?" Me: "You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Her: (defensive) "It was a joke." Me: "Um, so was mine." This is one of those cases, I think, where that maxim about some truth in every joke might be applicable.

And still — after all this evidence! — "Don Juan" here barreled ahead with a proposition for sex.

Anyroad² ... If you think my come-on was sexy, just wait 'til you get a load of Amy's response:

"I could probably be talked into something."

I'm not sure that she physically shrugged, but I swear I could hear it.

+++
And the red flags just kept popping up.

I got ready for bed while Amy stayed in front of the television, watching cake decorating. Friends, this never happens.

I was in bed when Amy came into the bedroom, and she asked if we could work on a crossword for awhile. It was almost 1:00 a.m. Any sane man would take the hint; any sane husband would gracefully bow out, letting his wife off the hook.

I hate to give away the ending to my story, but you all know where this is going, don't you?

+++
Lights off, we started kissing. And everything felt a little ... off. Like we'd been away from each other, lost our groove. I commented on this.

"I've felt so disconnected from you." I wasn't sure where this was going, but I hoped she could help me get there. But it was a dead end: Amy acknowledged that we've been really busy recently. End of discussion.

My hands worked around her body. My tongue traveled from neck to ear. I was gettin' ... nothin'.

As she stroked my chest, she said: "My hand is hurting a lot from this eczema thing tonight. I'm sorry, but I can't really touch you a lot." I told her that's fine. But the thought that it hurt to touch me dug deeper than I let on. I crave Amy's touch. Often, when she slips a hand under my shirt and strokes my back, there is a physical release of stress. I'm sure she thinks I'm overdramatizing when I react. It's as if I discovered a delicious treat I had no idea I was hungry for.

I slipped a hand inside her panties, and she giggled. "You're tickling me!" she said between laughs.

"I'm not doing anything! I'm not even being that gentle!"

"I'm sorry," she said. "You just went in soft and swiftly."

"Then let me try it again. This time I'll go in hard and clumsily," I joked.

"Well, that definitely won't tickle."

I try again, and again, she writhed in ticklish laughter. "I'm sorry, but your hand is just doing that to me tonight!"

I sit up and roughly start to pull off her panties. "Let's see what my tongue does to you, then."

I stayed knelt by her side, my head lowered to her pussy. A typical "69" position, except that my cock is off to the side. Usually she manually plays with me, but not tonight. My tongue went to work, but momentarily she bucked me off in another fit of laughter. One more try: This time her legs squeezed my face as she laughed into the pillow.

"You have got to be kidding me," I said, a little irked now.

She collected herself and finally allowed me in. I was all business. I had something to prove! What, exactly, I'm not sure. She had a pretty good orgasm. And then I did something slightly passive-aggressive: Instead of backing off after her orgasm, I locked my mouth over her cunt and continued to go at her like she still had somewhere to go. I guess I was trying to give her a second one, show her how good this could be. Whatever I was thinking (and calling it "thinking" is charitable), she finally had to force me off. I fell back on the bed panting.

Amy sat up and pulled off my boxer-briefs. With no preface, she came right down on my cock and went to work. It was really nice at first — some variation up and down the sides and underside of the shaft, combined with taking me deep. I slipped my hand into her hair and did some mild guiding. She winced.

"Gentler," she whispered in between sucks.

"Sorry," I said, and decided not to chance hurting her.

Instead, I slipped a hand between her legs, let a thumb stray into her ass crack. Immediately, she clinched and moved away. "Okay," I whispered, getting the message.

My hand slinked up her sides to her tank-covered breasts. I gently teased one, stimulating a nipples. Again, she flinched.

"I can't do that either?" The words came out of my mouth before I could stop myself. I think I was whining.

"I'm really sorry," she said. She repositioned herself between my legs, putting her bits out of reach. I sighed and put my hands over my head, grabbing the footboard of the bed.

I stared at the ceiling, realizing there was no way I was coming now. I was completely out of the mood. What's more, Amy, was totally overblowing me at this point. She was going up and down at breakneck pace on my dick, and the teeth were slowly creeping into play, more than they should. It was getting uncomfortable. (Perhaps she was just returning my passive aggression!) When she came up for air, I slipped a hand onto my cock and started jacking, encouraging her to work my balls instead.

But it was already over. Shortly, she came up beside me. She started licking my nipples as I continued to jack myself.

"Tell me something dirty," I suggested. With a good spate of slutchat from Amy, I could probably come off quickly.

"I was thinking about Cleopatra's small tits," she said, another reference to Rome. "What it would be like to have small tits like those. The kind that are barely there. Where you would just be able to suck on my nipples and really nothing else...."

This was the oddest direction she'd ever gone with such talk. She must have known that, because she abandoned it.

"It's just not my night," she sighed.

"No, I guess it's not," I acknowledged, though lovingly. I kissed her head. "You should just go to sleep."

With little hesitation, she flipped around, putting her head back at the top of the bed. "Are you going to finish?" she asked.

"I don't know. Maybe. Yes." But ten strokes later, my erection was gone. I turned around too.

I tried to talk a little more about the disconnection. I commented on feeling far away from her.

"Well, you stay up late, and I get up early," she said. And all I could think was, I'm not the one falling asleep at 9:00 every night! But saying that out loud would have definitely started a fight, and it would have been unfair anyway. Instead, I redirected my frustration, putting the burden on the child who hasn't been sleeping well. Amy didn't respond. She was falling asleep.

I looked at the clock. It was 1:45 a.m. I stared into darkness. I thought about the fact that there are going to be nights like these; we just hadn't had one in a long, long time. I thought about how borderline-petulant I was acting about all of this. I thought about masturbating again. But all masturbatory fantasies lead back to Amy, and any "fantasy Amy" would morph into tonight's Amy. The only possibility was a raunchy porn video to drown out my overactive head. But I didn't move. I just lay there and stewed.

I looked at the clock again. It was 3:02 a.m.

+++
"It's 6:51," said Amy, cuing me to get out of bed. I showered, the previous evening's events slowly coming back to me. Back in the bedroom, I stood at my dresser, pulling on underwear.

"It's a miracle," Amy said behind me, "that none of the kids have woken up."

"Yeah, that's cool," I said. I reached for an undershirt.

"So," she said, "you want to try again?"

I froze. Laughed. Shook my head. Walked over to the bed. "Bless you for that," I said. "But I have a hard time believing we won't be interrupted."

"But we could try," she said.

"You don't have to do this," I said.

"I want to do this," she said. Convincingly.

So, how cool is that?

I tossed the undershirt on the bed, stepped out of my underwear. Before I could say, "Alright, we can try," she had my flaccid cock in her mouth.

Three sucks later, it was rock-hard. I stood next to the bed as she lay down, encouraging me to fuck her mouth. I kept it gentle. This morning felt like it needed gentle.

"You keep yourself good and hard," she said after a moment, "and I'll be right back." She peed while I stretched on the bed, lazily jacking. She returned with a wicked grin and attacked my dick with gusto. It took just a few minutes before I quietly came. It was the thought that counted.

"Wow," she commented, "they're still not awake."

"Yeah," I said, slipping my underwear back on.

"So you could get me off again."

I turned around, and now she was stretched out, her hand already warming things up. I fell between her legs.

After several minutes of bringing her to the edge, she would fall away again. Finally, she pounded the mattress with a fist. "I don't know what's wrong! I get close, and then I lose it. I feel like I'm a long way away!"

"For what it's worth," I offered, "I'm having a hell of a time finding the pocket and getting a rhythm."

She pulled me up beside her. "Thanks anyway."

"No, thank you," I said. "This was a nice surprise."

She kissed me. "Gotta get moving." She headed to the shower.

"Breakfast?" I asked.

"Oh ... oatmeal or smoothie. Whichever you want."

I headed down the hall to the kitchen. We had managed to delay the start of the week by some twenty minutes, but now it was officially here.


--
¹ Sometimes I think I could rename this blog "A Marriage Held on the Couch." [Return]

² My new favorite word. I picked it up from Rome. Which, sadly, ended its run on HBO last night. Damn, I'm gonna miss that series. Even if there wasn't much of a series left, as all but three of the main characters were dead by the final credits. [Return]

Wet Wednesday #1: Rocco Siffredi, Mentor?

Due to the continuing ... well, questionable quality of the material supplied by the TMI Tuesday folks, I decided that this week I would wait 'til Wednesday to do a meme, deciding between the offerings of TMI Tuesday and the newer, less-known Wet Wednesday. Because Wet Wednesday's questions have been pretty interesting. Until this week. Of course.

So it was a tough decision between the lesser of two weak memes, but I decided to give Wet Wednesday a spin.

Why bother do this at all, you ask? Because I feel like all the other posts that are waiting to be addressed are major issues, and I'm still in a hardhat-work-zone where I just don't have the time to really delve into the issues I want to here. At least the memes are quick-and-dirty posts that keep fresh content on the blog.

Without further ado....

1. Have you ever watched a self-help sex DVD? Why or why not?

I have seen the ads for these many times in the back issues of Playboy and Penthouse, but never for a moment did I consider looking at one. I just assumed that they would be ... well, boring. There are so many other places to go for material like this — I'm talking largely, but not exclusively, the Internet — that I have to think the companies that put this product out aren't really selling much of it at all.

Besides, why would you need to watch this stuff when all the hardcore pornography is just as educational? How do I know this? Well, it says so right there at the beginning of every porn DVD. It must be true.


2. Have you ever read a self-help sex book? Why or why not?

I did read one of these once. Oh shit, I'm not going to remember the name of it now. But I remember the circumstances ... It was this period of time in the mid-1990s when Amy and I were in really bad shape, relationship-wise. On the verge of ending it. And the sex was awful. And I think I got it in my head that rediscovering myself sexually was somehow going to help things. The couples therapist we were seeing at the time was also giving us "exercises" to help us find our way sexually again, and I probably had some insane idea that this book was going to work in conjunction with that work.

The book had been given to us as a joke present one Christmas, and we'd just thrown them in a bottom shelf of an out-of-the-way bookcase. And I found this one one day and decided to delve into it. Here's my great revelation from the book, folks: Studying your genitals in a mirror will not save your sex life or your relationship. There, I just saved you $12.95. You're welcome.


3. If you and your partner were just not clicking sexually, would you ever see a sex therapist to "save" your relationship? Why or why not?

I'm sure we would. Regular couples therapy was really good for us, so I'm sure if we thought that was the best thing for us, we would consider it. But the fact is — I hope this doesn't sound boastful — Amy's and my communication is pretty sharp right now, and we talk very openly about all things sexual. I think we would probably be able to work out any major issues that came up, sexual or otherwise. Some would be harder than other. Sex is not one I'm worried about at the moment.


4. Premature ejaculation, limp erections, frigidity ... What is your biggest sexual frustration (besides not getting any)?

Well, when I was younger, the issue was definitely premature ejaculation. But I haven't had to worry about that in God-knows-how-long. And I've never had an issue with erections. (To answer your question: No, I don't have one right now.)

5. If you could choose a great, healthy, trusting, life-long marriage/relationship with no sex OR a so-so marriage/relationship with someone you had great, awesome sex with, which would you choose?

There's a toughie.

Ever the optimist, I'd probably choose the so-so marriage with the awesome sex ... with the (probably mistaken) impression that over time, we could turn the so-so elment into fantastic. Either that, or I'd figure that I'd find the non-sexual elements that were missing in the marriage, I could find them somewhere else in another relationship ... a sort of emotional/social affair.

Laying Groundwork.

I received a couple of comments on my blog entry about our night at a formal party that I found a little disturbing. Not "disturbing" in the sense that I was repelled by them; rather, they sent ripples across the surface of my understanding of my sexual relationship ... and of the purpose of this blog. For several days now, I have been turning things over in my head. This entry is more for myself than readers. I'm thinking out loud, I guess.

The first comment came from the illustrious Tom Paine, who, upon reading the entry, simply noted:

Very nice the way you two are moving along. Good luck.

And then, very recently, Mike of Shared Cindy wrote a similar comment:

I am an avid follower of your progress.

Seemingly innocuous notes, maybe; but to me, they force to the front burner an issue that I need to sort out: What, exactly, am I progressing toward? I'm not sure if these readers intended or assumed with their comments that I have a specific sexual goal ... say, inviting others into our bed, or watching Amy fuck another man. While both of these examples are deep-seeded fantasies — shared to an equal or lesser extent by Amy — they're really beside the point.

I'm writing because I want to "explore the issues that grow out of the aging sexual relationship." (A quote from my inaugural post.) Interestingly, I haven't ended up doing a lot of that exploration yet, because I've (unexpectedly) been writing about all the actual sex we've been having. (A pretty great problem to have!) I imagine this more "active" period is fleeting, and that the underlying issues that brought me to this blog in the first place are still there, waiting to be dealt with.

There's a big part of me that is envious of what Tom Paine (and C.) and Mike (and Cindy) have. But so many factors make that kind of relationship entirely unrealistic for Amy and me. Primary among them is Amy's feeling that sex isn't ... well ... as important to her. While she might indulge me in some of my fantasies sometime, the fact remains that her libido is maybe a tenth of mine. She's good, giving, and game ... but not necessarily looking to push the boundaries.

I will keep pushing boundaries, though, both during sex and through conversation. If it's possible, I want to help Amy rediscover her sexual self, to glimpse the woman I find so stimulating, so electrifying. This can't be accomplished if Amy is feeling uncomfortable in any way, so the whole boundary-pushing thing has to be handled with care. No sudden moves. No unexpected surprises. In short: Trust. Now: If, down the line, through further discussion, we discover that there is a more "non-traditional" activity we'd like to really try — say, inviting another couple or individual into our bed — then I would be more than game (if I was convinced that Amy was truly into the experience).

In reality, my expectations are low in that regard. We are a long way from that kind of play. In the meantime, the increased communication that would be part of this examination of our sex life may naturally improve things. As we discover more about what turns us on, what we're willing to do, and what we really want, the quality of the sex could reach a higher level than we've ever imagined.

Ever the optimist, eh, Denis?

Cop a Feel, Show Me the Love.

Amy and I are pretty good at "the communication thing." We talk things out pretty well. But like all couples with a long history, we make our fair share of assumptions without clearly communicating, and we end up in relationship minefields on occasion.

We resort to a lot of "shorthand" typical of marriage ... which is just a different way of making assumptions, I suppose. There is verbal shorthand -- language or phrases familiar only to us. (We refer to our favored way of lying together in bed as "position one.") And there is an emotional shorthand that develops. (Amy calls to me from down the hall, and I can tell from a tone in her voice that she's upset, so I move quickly down the hallway.)

Here's a less obvious example: On Saturday night, I suggested a shower together. Amy paused before answering. A fly on the wall might have assumed she was considering my proposal, but in fact it was being dismissed. To be honest, I knew before I asked -- she had been cleaning up crap around the house all night, obsessing about our home's disorder. Her speech was coming in short, purposeful bursts ("What do you want to do with these magazines?" "I'm getting rid of these socks, they bug me"). She wasn't angry, but neither was her demeanor light. In other words, she probably couldn't have been feeling less like having sex without being in an emergency room waiting area. Still, I had to ask, just in case she was willing to try and shift gears.

When she waffled, I took the burden off of her. What I wanted to do required her full emotional participation. If I didn't have that, I was no longer interested myself. There will be other nights.

Last night, I decided quite spontaneously to break down one of the "shorthands" Amy has built around us. I had propositioned her with oral (of the non-reciprocating variety), and she was semi-interested until she discovered how late it had was. "Sorry to ruin your fun," she said, officially taking sex off the table as she buttoned her pajamas. Already naked in bed, I told her that was fine, that I understood.

After she turned off the lights and climbed into bed, we were having a conversation about something unrelated, and I took her hand and put it on my cock. She didn't move it for a moment or two and we kept talking.

At a break in the conversation, I said: "Play with me for awhile."

"Well ... okay." Her hand moved around a little. The tone in her voice wasn't lost on me.

"Are you reluctant," I asked, "because you think you're going to get me going? That you'll leave me all teased and turned on and frustrated?"

"Well ... yeah," Amy said.

"You know, sometimes I just like being touched. Teased. It doesn't have to mean I want all-out sex."

"Okay," she said, and her hand moved with a little more assurance.

"It's nice to know occasionally that you know it's there, even when it's not gonna get used."

She got it. We talked about something else while she manipulated. My cock was hard. I was happy where I was, just enjoying the feel. This wasn't going anywhere, and that was just fine.

After a few minutes, Amy turned away from me. One might have taken that as shorthand for her being upset with me, but this was not the case. She's just more comfortable sleeping on the side of her body that faces away from me. Every night she does this, and every night I spoon against her after the flip. On this occasion I also thrust my newly aroused shaft against her pajama-covered butt.

"Thank you," I kissed into her ear. "It's nice to have just that once in awhile." Amy sleepily acknowledged.

Not a day goes by that I don't find opportunities to touch Amy in an "adult" way. Usually it involves caressing or grabbing her ass. Sometimes, if the "coast is clear," I'll come up behind her and gently palm a breast. Sometimes the touch is accompanied by a comment, eliciting one of her self-conscious laughs. I'm stealing a chance to fondle my lover -- on the sly, without my wife finding out. The fact that my lover and my wife are one and the same seems immaterial.

Some people would find this touchy habit annoying. Apparently Amy doesn't. In fact, this morning, after dragging a hand across her butt for the third time in less than five minutes as I moved around the kitchen, I apologized: "I'm sorry," I said. "I'll stop touching you."

"You do not have to stop touching me!" she assured.

Well, good, then. I won't!

(Except perhaps I do have to be more careful when I cup her breasts with cold hands. No need to see if she can put a hole in our bedroom ceiling with her head.)

So I have this shorthand with her body as we move through our day together ... but she doesn't return the favor much. She doesn't cop feels. Why is that? Maybe it's just not her thing. She enjoys receiving gropes, but maybe she's not comfortable giving them. Or perhaps it just doesn't occur to her. I'm trying to let her know that it's okay to tease me.

I was thinking about this in the shower this morning. When I got out, I returned to the bedroom where Amy was still snoozing. I woke her with a kiss and then I rubbed her back, which melted her. I reached under the pajama top and caressed a breast. She seemed to be enjoying it, not hurrying to get up. Then she said: "I suddenly need to pee." When she arose, she saw me in my turgid state. "I'm sorry that I'm leaving you with that," she said as she reached down and gave it a couple tugs. She sounded genuinely disappointed.

Off to the bathroom she went ... and off to the bathroom I followed. When she sat down and when she looked up, she was staring directly at my cock. She let out a low chuckle and took the head in her mouth. She sat there for less than a minute, sleepily licking the shaft while my fingers rubbed her head. When she was done peeing, I asked her what she wanted for breakfast, walked out, pulled on my underwear, and started the rest of my day.

Just play. Just fun. A little tease, and another suggestion to her that it doesn't have to go somewhere every time, that we can fool around for a few moments and then return to business as usual. It's hard to find the playful side of our days with the internal and external stresses. And as we go through our days as spouses and parents, it's nice to remember that we are also lovers.

BlogMeBlogYou

Don't get me wrong: I think blogging is, on the whole, a good thing. But for me, something's missing, and I think it's the sense of conversation. A true give-and-take, a back-and-forth, an exchange of ideas.

(There are, of course, other inherent faults and weaknesses to blogging, but for now I'll leave that discussion to critics who wax eloquent on why they embrace/despise the blogosphere.)

The "comments" section of a blog entry attempts to create dialogue, but too often that section ends up being no more than (mostly) lauds or (rarely) condemnations of the entry and its author. Which is fine -- God knows I love praise and criticism, as most of us do.

Some bloggers are really delving, exploring, questioning, pushing your envelopes. And sometimes that strikes a chord with readers, including myself. I'm finding I want to do more than just comment on someone's blog ... I want to "riff off" of that entry on my own blog. I know there are bloggers doing this, but it seems rare. I want to see more of it.

This may become a regular feature of The Concupiscent Husband ... I don't know yet. But at least this week, a couple of items moved me.


Married Exploits: The "Artemis" two-parter (Part 1 | Part 2)

Funnily enough, my first entry of this sort cites a blog entry that does exactly what I'm wishing there was more of! The Married Exploits blog is already a conversation of sorts between a husband and wife, "Odysseus" and "Penelope." And specifically in these two entries, Odysseus was reacting, at least in part, to an entry on the blog The Dark Side of Me. In that entry, Lena briefly bemoans the fact that men must repress one of their most beautiful (in her opinion) qualities: That they think about sex almost constantly. Odysseus "responds" in his own blog:

That's a big reason why I wanted to start this blog. Because there are lots of things that I think about that I feel compelled to repress.... It's kind of backwards to what you might usually think about society and sex. But it's true: men have a lot more thoughts than they are 'allowed' to admit.

Penelope later follows up:

I guess I've always seen it as society and media always bombarding us with sexual images and portraying impossible ideals for women and that in turns creates more lust and sexual thoughts in men. Could it really be the other way around and men are trying to conform to the expectation that they should view women less sexually and it is going against natural urges or instincts? Maybe it is both influences and expectations clashing in male minds.

I think Penelope's on the money here. It's almost as if society itself is operating under its own Madonna-whore complex: Our media and fashion cultures (which, it should be noted, is probably still pretty male-dominated) foists sex upon us at every turn -- because "sex sells" -- and then gets all uppity and pissy when a man is checking out his female co-worker's tits when she's wearing the á la mode low-cut number. There is a built-in expectation of repression.

(And while we're at it: To a lesser extent, doesn't this "syndrome" work its negativity in the other direction? If repressive community mores indicate that a woman is not to be viewed as a sex object, what does this do to the psyche of the woman who sometimes wants to be viewed that way? Is she automatically branded a slut?)

Reading these entries, I realized that Odysseus' motivation to blog is a big part of why I started my blog too. Many of you are led to believe from my entries (so far) that Amy's and my communication is pretty open; perhaps it is, relative to the average relationship. But I feel like I repress a lot of my sexual thoughts.

There are a number of reasons for this, and chief among them is that I don't want to annoy Amy with the already obvious fact that her husband has that stereotypical one-track mind. I worry that an increased discussion of sex in our everyday life would indicate a subtext of wanting more sex from her, heaping more stress on the sizable compost heap she already wields on her shoulders. And while it's true that I do want more sex, just because I'm talking about it doesn't mean I want to jump her bones right then. It's not like I don't feel I can tell her these things; I'm just (over?)sensitive to, you know, when enough's enough already.

I like Odysseus and Penelope's entries because the couple are talking around the fringes of the idea of inviting someone else into their bed. Will it ever really happen? Perhaps. But the outcome doesn't matter much, because the very fact that they're having these discussions is giving a positive sexual charge to their relationship.

+ + +

La fille Mariée: "Beautiful Cock"

Two things occur to me when I read this post.

First, how powerful the word "cock" can be. Almost as powerful, I think sometimes, as "fuck," a word that has been discussed to death by pundit-style eroticists for years. What makes this such a fun read is that you just begin to lose yourself in the poetry of LFM's writing, the sensuous experience she is sharing ... and then you run smack-dab into that word.

Look at "cock." No, not mine, you goof; look at the word. Hard on the outside, and just a little softer in the middle. It's onomatopoeic. It's less exclamation (like "fuck") than punctuation. There's no sweet-talking the word. You can't start to say it and then veer off in another direction, like you can with "fff ... udge." Cock is cock. Right there, in your face, demading to be dealt with.

So to juxtapose "cock" with LFM's prose -- even to juxtapose it with the word "beautiful" -- is a joyous thing. It makes my blood surge, no matter how many times I play the words back over in my head.

The second thing I wanted to say was this: These are the words of (and for) a new lover, on the level of some of the beauty of Song of Solomon. I remember my wife feeling this sort of passion for my body. Maybe she still does, but I'm betting it's not that often. I still feel an incredible depth of passion for hers, but I remember finding more ways to tell her -- ways similar to Mariée's deft post.

This is a new love, I believe, because there are so few loves of many years that can still express this "passion of discovery." That may sound like a forlorn observation, but I think of it more as a melancholy observation -- not melancholy as sadness, but rather as "pensive reflection or contemplation." The early weeks of a new love are frighteningly potent and stimulating. There's no way to maintain that level of energy over years -- embers are bound to cool and will need stoking. Yes, it would be nice if the mercury could be permanently suspended at that higher temperature, but if that were the case we wouldn't appreciate it nearly as much. That's why this kind of "youthful exuberance" should be, I believe, reserved for relationships in their youth.

Justify My (Blog's) Existence

I won't lie: Her breasts had a lot to do with the initial attraction.

I've never been the kind of guy who was getting so much sex that he could pick and choose his partners. I don't believe that many guys like that exist. But I definitely have predilections, and a good-sized chest was something that I favor, should the opportunity arise. While Amy wasn't the kind of woman whose breasts introduced themselves before she did, it didn't take long to sense another "presence" in the room. For me, it was a short hop from acknowledgment to outright desire.

And, at the risk of making Amy sound slutty, it was not a long trip from that initial desire for her breasts to my first opportunity to play with them. Within hours of our introduction, after a fascinating and complex evening of events (a story that may be expounded on another occasion), we lay on the futon on the floor of her bedroom. Her fuchsia t-shirt was pulled up over her tits, revealed in their supple, succulent glory to my hands and lips for the first time. Her hands were simultaneously inside the pair of shorts she had loaned me earlier that morning, getting acquainted with my own equipment.

We were in our mid-twenties, and we thoroughly enjoyed those first months of simultaneous love/lust in a most cliché way. We spent every spare moment together, essentially cutting out the rest of our friends (and family too) as we obsessively experienced every aspect of each other. I'm speaking mostly sexually here, let's be honest. She had heard from a mutual friend how much I enjoyed extended sessions of eating pussy. She showed herself equally talented when it came to oral exploits. Which was a nice change for me from my previous girlfriend, who seemed to begrudgingly fellate me. Amy helped me make up for lost time.

We jokingly kept track of orgasms for probably the first fifty or so. We slyly played with each other in public settings like movie theaters and restaurants. We shared music, books, and rug burns. We cooked for each other. We would find ourselves overcome with emotion for how lucky we were to have found each other. We made our rug burns much worse in a typically twentysomething effort to express said emotions.

Our lives were not solely defined by sex, but there is no denying that it was a huge part of those early years. Simply put, we loved fucking.

+ + +

Amy and I are now in our forties. We are married. We have children. And like so many other couples who have walked a similar path, we chuckle with a vague yearning about how free those times in our twenties seemed. In so many respects, we are happy where we are now. But -- and trust me, I know how cliché this aspect of our relationship is as well -- the amount of sex has lessened dramatically. By cliché I mean "normal." A dropoff is to be expected for the vast majority of relationships that follow our trajectory.

We are struggling to find that balance between work and family, and somewhere in there we also need to nourish the needs of the primary relationship, the one between Amy and me. Intimacy still plays a major role, though now it seems to be defined more by its elusiveness.

Libidos have fallen out of balance. Mine seems as strong as ever, but the demands on Amy are such that she frankly is not as interested. This is not to say that when we do make the time that she's not an enthusiastic and thoroughly pleasing lover. But there is no question that I am the initiator in 95% of the encounters -- which themselves seem few and far between.

This blog is not meant to be a place for me to complain; that would be so deadly dull that even I wouldn't read it. But I am hoping that I might garner a readership of men and women in similar circumstances, and that my thoughts (and yours) might help us explore the issues that grow out of the aging sexual relationship.

Though there will probably be a certain amount of analysis and self-study, I am hoping that this blog will titillate too. I enjoy writing erotica, and I plan on discussing, in frank and usually prurient language, Amy's and my past and future encounters, as well as our fantasies.

Not unlike the way my marriage is a balance between my needs and my wife's, I will try to counterweight my exploration of our relationship's sexual psyche with my (imagined?) audience's desire for a little arousal. On the day that I'm writing this, I have no earthly idea if I'll be able to pull this off. It'll be fun trying, though!